


the moon smiled

by thedisasternerd



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, CC-2224 | Cody is Trying, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Obi-Wan Kenobi Gets a Hug, Order 66 Didn't Happen (Star Wars), POV CC-2224 | Cody, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, canon divergence has never been so sweet, cody falls in love with the soul of a poet, dead sheev is a sexy sheev, dead sheev is the only valid sheev, last chapter really reinforces the domestic fluff tag, these two are soft, they made it!, with all the tragedy and hope of one, yes they're that stupid we been knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedisasternerd/pseuds/thedisasternerd
Summary: Cody fell in love on Coruscant.He could have realised it in the middle of a battlefield, side by side with Obi-Wan who was fighting like he was born to it. He could've thought those three devastating words for the first time in the Medbay after a battle, watching Obi-Wan sit with his hair limp over his forehead and injuries marring pale skin. Cody could've whisperedI love youunder his breath during a strategy meeting, losing the words into static in his helmet's vocoder's wiring while Obi-Wan was cool and calculating, his hands as cold and efficient as his gaze when he snapped at an Admiral for disregarding life.Instead, as they were going back to the Temple, Cody fell into step beside his general on a too-hot summer day on Coruscant. In the hazy mix of impressions and disjointed thoughts, he'd thought, helplessly and almost inevitably,I love Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his chest had suddenly been full enough to burst.---A story of hope, friendship, and falling in love.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 56
Kudos: 470





	1. part 1: during the war

**Author's Note:**

> After a month of stress, mental breakdowns and writer's block, this fic latched onto me and wouldn't let go. The latter chapters are mostly written and will be up as life allows. 
> 
> Disclaimer: not beta'd. Any and all mistakes are mine.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

> _If the moon smiled,_
> 
> _She would resemble you._
> 
> _You leave the same impression_
> 
> _Of something beautiful,_
> 
> _Yet annihilating._

Cody fell in love on Coruscant.

The phrase alone could have made it into those seedy romance holos that Waxer loved so much. Then again, Cody felt like he himself could be in one of those things as a lead role - although Obi-Wan would probably _not_ suit the blushing maiden part particularly well, no matter what the Ghosts liked to think. Besides, holos didn't often capture the whole " _we're in a galactic war, one of us isn't technically considered to be a sentient being, the other is The Kriffing Epitome of a Jedi - and we could die any moment._ " side of things.

There were, of course, lots of holos about _impossible love_ , often featuring a reserved Jedi breaking the Code in a fit of carnal desires, or of finding love in some awful parody of a horrific real life war. Recently, the Core has actually managed to churn out some pretty... _unrealistic_ holodramas about Jedi-Clone romances, which the inhabitants of the Core, who hadn't seen war in centuries, ate up like sugar. 

Nonetheless, of all the places Cody could've fallen in love, it had to be while he was spending a day of his leave on Coruscant with Obi-Wan. 

He could have realised in the middle of a battlefield, side by side with Obi-Wan who was fighting like he was born to it ( _just like the clones_ ). He could've thought those three devastating words for the first time in the Medbay after a battle, watching Obi-Wan sit with his hair limp over his forehead and injuries marring pale skin. Cody could've whispered _I love you_ under his breath during a strategy meeting, losing the words into static in his helmet's vocoder's wiring while Obi-Wan was cool and calculating, his hands as cold and efficient as his gaze when he snapped at an Admiral for disregarding life. 

Instead, as they were going back to the Temple, Cody fell into step beside his general on a too-hot summer day on Coruscant. In the hazy mix of impressions and disjointed thoughts, he'd thought, helplessly and almost inevitably, _I love Obi-Wan Kenobi_ , and his chest had suddenly been full enough to burst.

Obi-Wan had stopped, several times, in the sunlight, pointing out places and people and things, chattering about history and culture. But rather than listening fully, Cody had been far too engrossed in how the sun set the Jedi aflame, in the shine of Obi-Wan's hair and the glow of his eyes. The man's eyes were frighteningly blue in the bright light; they were the colour of hyperspace streaks, the colour of the blue skies of Hoth. They were a terrible, eternal blue that spoke of hope and the slight tang of hot metal in the air after a lightsaber duel.

Then, an eternity and yet only a second later, Obi-Wan had turned away from the light to look at Cody curiously.

"Cody?" He prompted, the corner of his mouth ticking up. "Is there something on my face?"

"Ah, no." Cody coughed and looked away, feeling himself flush. Obi-Wan's amusement leaked into the air around them, warm and curling. "You were saying?"

They stood there, on the edge of the pavement, for a long time. Obi-Wan gestured expansively, telling stories that Cody couldn't hope to follow while his mind chanted _I love him, I love him_ in time with the beat of his heart, pumping love-drunk blood through to his fingertips and his dizzied brain. 

He was warm to his very bones and delirious with it. He was falling into a blaze of colour and his ears roared. 

He was in love, and it felt good when he was on the high of it, still in the air.

For days after that, it felt like he’d drunk too much rotgut, skin too hot and every time he looked at Obi-Wan the ache in his chest intensified until it felt like he couldn’t breathe. Obi-Wan must’ve known something was up, what with the way he stuck close to Cody, all slanting gazes as if he was watching a shiny who’d caught a chill and was sneezing their way across the deck. Of course, that only made it worse.

It was pathetic. It was unprofessional. Not only that, he was not designed to _love_ , he was not made to _yearn_ \- he was made to die. Created to die in the name of the Republic, to die fighting under the command of the same man that he loved so hopelessly, the man he wanted not just to die or kill for, but to _live_ for. 

It only got worse, of course. He fell asleep every night with the memories of Obi-Wan’s smile, his hands, the swish of his robes, the burnished copper of his hair, the blue of his eyes, all of the little things that made up _Obi-Wan Kenobi,_ swirling in his mind. Sometimes, he curled up under the covers with his shoulder or back prickling because Obi-Wan had offered a casual pat or touch earlier that day, burning his fingerprints into Cody’s skin. 

Rarer, more shamefully, he thought about - having Obi-Wan with him, wrapping his arms around the Jedi and never letting him go. He imagined that he could indulge all those little urges: brushing back that one lock of Obi-Wan's hair, tracing patterns in the thin white scars and the scatterings of freckles, catching the tips of Obi-Wan's fingers and holding those cold, rough hands in his own (clones ran hot, and Obi-Wan always seemed to be cold). 

Imagining what could be only made the aching emptiness larger. Cody had, in a way, hit the ground and was staring up at the impossibly high sky of possibility - it was the colour of Obi-Wan’s eyes.

What made matters worse was that High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi was a wanted man. In both senses of the word.

So, people either wanted to kriff him, kill him, or both. Obi-Wan himself flirted shamelessly, both on and off the battlefield, which was in no way helpful. As Boil put it, the Jedi’s type wasn’t so much _blonde and angry_ (the only example of that was Duchess Satine, which would hardly count) but rather _willing and with a pulse_ . And for all that they (mostly General Skywalker, Alpha-17 and Jedi Vos, really) made fun of Kenobi for that, Cody was starting to get - an _odd feeling_ about it all.

He didn’t want to admit that he knew exactly what it was. It was an unpleasant mix of anger - understandable, given that Obi-Wan was _putting himself in danger_ \- and something else that, for all he knew what the sum of the tangled emotions was, he couldn’t name.

He hated it. Something didn’t feel at all right inside his chest every time Obi-Wan flirted with someone, or when Cody thought that he was with someone else. Some primal part of Cody, one that the Kaminoans’ upbringing had only exacerbated, wanted to _have,_ to _possess._ It was probably wrong of him, wanting a living being so much, but he couldn’t fight it. 

And yet - Cody found that he would be happy with what he had: Obi-Wan’s occasional touches and slanting smiles, and the memories of two precious summer days spent on Coruscant. He found that no matter how much he wanted to hold Obi-Wan and keep him close, he also knew only too well that even if, perhaps, Obi-Wan felt the same way ( _loved him back!)_ \- he would not be able to keep the Jedi from trying to hold the whole galaxy on his shoulders. He would not dare to do it. 

_And yet, and yet._

When they met up with the 501st, the first thing they did was have yet another tactical meeting. As usual, Cody found himself watching his general for longer than he probably should have. Obi-Wan, of course, noticed - but rather than doing that half-smile of acknowledgement where his eyes crinkle at the corners, he flushed and looked away. Cody did too. 

After the meeting, before they dispersed to fight, Rex managed to corner him.

“I have a good can of paint riding on this,” he hissed, and Cody knew, with a sinking feeling, exactly what was going to come out of his vod’ika’s mouth, “are you in love with General Kenobi?”

Cody kicked him in the shin, hard enough for the little shit to wince.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Rex said smugly.

“Is it really that obvious?” 

“Yes.” Rex’s answer was humiliatingly quick. “You were staring, Codes. You stare, and you blush. And Ponds claimed you couldn’t speak for a few minutes after he-”

“Shut _up!"_ Cody snapped, but Obi-Wan was beckoning them over so he couldn’t maim Rex any more. “Or I’ll tell Skywalker about that time-”  
“I’ll tell General Kenobi.” Rex countered quickly.

Cody harrumphed. 

“It’s not like he doesn’t know.” 

Rex stared at him, looking dumbstruck, but before he could say anything Obi-Wan wandered over and cut in.

“Shall we go, then?”

They saluted, and went. Cody would have to look up the plan on his HUD, but it wasn’t like he cared where he was going. He’d follow Obi-Wan anywhere, even unto death.

* * *

"Cody," Obi-Wan said slowly, "does this taste a little funny?"

Cody paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, setting it down before he spilled any broth onto the pristine white tablecloth. 

"A little fishy, perhaps." Cody told him drolly. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, nudging him with fond annoyance with his foot under the table. Cody couldn’t get used to these little touches, friendly physical contact - Obi-Wan was, as it turned out, just as tactile as the clones. But Cody’s skin felt like it was on fire whenever it happened. He had stopped blushing by then, but the tingling never went away. "But no, sir. Tastes... it has taste, sir, but nothing bitter."

Obi-Wan sighed and dragged his spoon through the soup before lifting it up to his mouth. Cody watched him taste it carefully, the Jedi's eyes narrowing in concentration. It was cute. 

He caught himself on the thought and strangled it viciously, feeling his fingers tighten with bitter strength around his spoon. He had to stick to the rules. _Fall out of love as quickly as possible. Don’t think about him._

It was proving a difficult task. In fact, Cody found himself convinced that it was impossible to lose the fragile hope and devastating ache of being in love. 

It was hard to turn away from the sky, after all. But he never knew he could feel like this, like he’d never seen the sky before.

"I suppose I'm just going to have an allergic reaction, then." Obi-Wan sighed, breaking Cody’s spiral of thoughts. Cody winced, remembering the time on some Inner Mid Rim world involving Obi-Wan and a bowl of Hoi broth. "Well, I guess I'll have to eat this in the name of diplomacy."

Cody made a face at him, trying to convey his concern. Obi-Wan just huffed a laugh and went back to making his way through the bowl, albeit with a tiny grimace wrinkling the corners of his eyes.

So, Cody turned back to his own meal with a sigh. Obi-Wan was incorrigible and this didn't seem to be anything particularly...Hoi broth like, so hopefully it was just Obi-Wan's Super Jedi Tastebuds playing up a little bit. Besides, the man had had a cold last week, which had been the perfect excuse to keep him bundled up and supplied with tea to keep him from being too pouty and irritable. The men had been perfectly happy to assign that job to Cody - which, fortunately, hadn’t been a complete disaster. If he had sat by Obi-Wan, watched him sleep and brushed his hair out of his face - well, no-one had to know.

As soon as Obi-Wan had stopped sneezing all over the place, they'd been dispatched on a "diplomatic" mission that was more or less just lurking completely non-threateningly on Cato Neimodia to make sure they didn't have any dealings with the Separatists. It was the most the 212th could hope to get in terms of a break from fighting. Not quite leave, but they weren't being shot at, or dying, or-

Obi-Wan kicked him warningly. Cody dutifully put the spoon in his mouth, then made the mistake of looking up at Waxer, who was sitting across from them with Boil and Longshot at his sides. The Lieutenant didn't hesitate to mouth _whipped_ at him, looking far too gleeful for his own good.

_K-P_ , Cody mouthed back, glaring, then held up three fingers surreptitiously. Waxer made dejected eyes at him before going back to his own, equally brown, equally unappetising, soup. Boil sighed loud enough for Cody to hear, but Longshot just snickered into his hand. 

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan just hummed something under his breath, seemingly completely oblivious, still steadfastly eating.

“In the name of diplomacy.” Cody echoed.

"I've had far, far worse," Cody's Jedi said, because that was supposed to explain everything, "believe me, my dear."

Cody was almost scared to ask. His heart skipped into his heart at the endearment, but he knew it meant nothing - it was just a phrase Obi-Wan tended to use, nothing significant.

"For example, sir?"

Obi-Wan paused. His face worked, twisting a little to the side, eye twitching, before he said: "Processed bantha dung."

"No kriffing way." Cody blurted, horrified. "You’re joking.”

"Unfortunately," Obi-Wan gave him one of his half amused, half world-weary, looks, "I'm not. I really wish I was."

"Well." The soup was suddenly much more palatable. "To each their own."

The formal meal was over in about an hour. Cody managed to get through the soup only because of the thought of _processed bantha dung_ looping through his brain - Obi-Wan was most likely thinking the same thing.

They made their way into Obi-Wan’s rooms with Waxer and Boil trailing behind them. Obi-Wan was getting paler with every step he took, Cody noted, trying not to panic. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, trading a worried glance with his lieutenants, who had suddenly materialised much closer to them. “Obi-Wan. Sir.”

“I’m quite alright.” Obi-Wan waved him off with a tight smile.

However, by the time they arrived, Obi-Wan was weaving on his feet and his hand, which had been hovering cautiously in the space between them, was clutching Cody’s upper arm. They went through the door and Obi-Wan half collapsed onto Cody, legs giving out from under him.

_Sithspit-_

They barely managed to get him onto the chair, Cody on one side of their general, Waxer on the other. Boil wasn’t there - probably comming Painless, their medic. Cody dropped to the man’s side.

“Obi-Wan, talk to me, stay awake, please.” Cody shook Obi-Wan’s shoulders gently, one arm sliding round to support Obi-Wan’s lolling head. “Obi-Wan!”

“Sir?” Waxer knelt down beside him.

“I think,” Obi-Wan gasped out, after Cody’s voice was beginning to creep into higher ranges. “I just. Cody?”

“I’m here.”

“The soup,” Obi-Wan lifted his hand and covered Cody’s with it. Cody held on tight. “There was something in the soup.”

And then his eyes rolled back. His hand went limp in Cody’s.

“Obi-Wan?” Cody shook him, harder this time. “Obi-Wan, stay with me, gods damn it!”

There was no response.

And Cody-

-it was a blur, after that. 

* * *

_Space was - empty._

_Space was space. And_ empty _space at that._

_“It’s aptly named.” Kenobi laughed quietly from beside him. At Cody’s confused look, he continued: “You were thinking out loud, commander.”_

_Cody flushed and pushed away from the viewport. He wasn't particularly used to zero G, so he did his best to stick as close as possible to handholds in the wall. Kenobi, however, seemed perfectly calm, floating cross-legged with his eyes slitted - but looking right at Cody._

_“Sorry sir.”_

_“No, don’t apologise,” Kenobi smiled at him. Cody noted how his eyes crinkled at the corners and tried not to get hypnotised by the calm blue of the Jedi’s irises. “Anakin talks in his sleep sometimes.”_

_Cody couldn't hold back his snort; Kenobi’s eyes crinkled further and his smile showed just a hint of teeth._

_“For that, I’m sorry.” Cody ignored the anxious thrill of_ **don’t disrespect superior officers-** _and instead smirked lazily. He and Kenobi were_ almost _friends at this point, mostly by snark, late-night paperwork and a multitude of other little things that had accumulated into something as yet unnamed._

_“Yes.” Kenobi’s smile turned into a grin, but even that was just a little too sharp around the corners. A note of warning struck, quiet but sure, in the back of Cody’s mind. “But I must confess, it is...rather enlightening.”_

_He winked at Cody’s raised eyebrow and unfolded his legs. Unlike Cody, he had nothing physical to push off of, so he hung forlornly in mid-air for a few moments, seemingly at ease, despite how his eyes were_ just _this side of too-wide._

_“Does the Force not work in outer space or something?” Cody teased, rather than calling his general out, flexing his grip on the wall._

_Kenobi - he_ pouted _for all of a second before making a hand gesture that sent him floating gently towards the viewport that Cody just vacated._

_“I am with the Force and the Force is with me.” Kenobi muttered. Cody wasn't sure if he was meant to hear it. “But yes. It is rather empty, isn’t it?”_

_“Yes sir.”_

_“Very empty,” Kenobi echoed, a hand pressing against the viewport. The transparisteel fogged up around it, and if he took it away there would be the outline of a handprint - maybe the last sign of life within this system. Cody shuddered at the thought. “And so very -_ desolate _.”_

_Cody nodded absently, watching debris drift past their little escape pod. Kenobi huffed a breath but carried on staring out into the inky blackness, dotted with a million distant points of bright light._

_“It’s so easy, isn’t it?” Kenobi murmured. He turned to Cody and his eyes glinted dully in the dim overhead lights. “So very_ easy _.”_

_Cody swallowed, confused and somewhat taken aback. Kenobi’s eyes showed none of his prior humour, only a sort of dull ache overlaying a deep-rooted fear. It was a fear that Cody had seen before: in the mirror, in his siblings’ eyes when they let their tears drip down their faces with someone else’s helmet cradled in their arms._

_But it was also that numbing, senseless fear he had felt deep in his chest when he was struggling to keep his head above the crashing waves of an ocean on a water planet deep in the Outer Rim, the blue expanse beneath him bottomless and terrifying as he did his best to keep himself afloat, his general paddling with his usual graceful ease next to him-_

_“What is?” Cody prompted. “Easy I mean.”_

_“Getting lost.” Kenobi breathed. His eyes were petrified on Cody’s face. “Out here.”_

_“You could say that.” Cody inched closer to his general and noticed the unnatural pallor of his skin, the bags under his eyes, the tremor in his fingers._

_Kenobi nodded and took a shuddering breath, his eyes tearing back to the viewport. His fingers were too-white on the edges of it, although he seemed - less terrified._

_Because that was what he was, for that half minute. Terrified._

_"Sir?"_

_Kenobi turned to him and smiled glibly, with an ease that made Cody's hair stand on end._

_"Yes, Commander?"_

_"Are you." He paused and reached out to put a hand on Kenobi's shoulder. "Are you alright?"_

_"Fine." Kenobi almost bit the words out, but the haunted, hunted look was slipping out of the cracks in his eyes and his voice broke in all the wrong places. "I'm fine."_

_"Sir." Cody inched his way over, boldened by the fact that Kenobi hadn't shaken him off. "Sir, it's okay. Backup is coming, ETA an hour."_

_Kenobi nodded jerkily. His breaths were coming harsher now and Cody knew a panic attack when he saw one._

_"Sorry," the Jedi choked out, and_ oh _there were tears in his eyes, "I don't. I'm not a big...fan of outer space."_

_Cody let his hand rub grounding circles onto the Jedi's back but didn't make any further moves, letting Kenobi breathe through it._

_"I understand." His gaze slid past his general, to the stars glittering in inky blackness. "It's okay."_

_“Call me Obi-Wan,” Kenobi whispered eventually, voice shaking, “you might as well.”_

_“Alright,” Cody didn’t let his hand pause, “Obi-Wan.”_

_Next to him, Obi-Wan’s lips twitched up in a poor facsimile of a smile, although there was a flash of warmth in his eyes._

_But he continued to breathe, his chest rising and falling under Cody's hand, a steady sign of life._

* * *

"Commander." 

Obi-Wan looked unhealthily pale and wasted, his robes too big on him, but then again he had been poisoned two days ago. His heart had stopped twice before Painless had managed to stabilise him. In fact, Obi-Wan should still have been _resting_ \- Painless was probably going to start yelling soon. 

"General." Cody saluted, for formality's sake. "How are you?"

"Alright, thank you, Cody." Obi-Wan smiled wanly, coming up to stand just a little bit closer to Cody. "Rumour has it that it was you who uncovered the Neimoidian’s Separatist dealings?"

"They tried to poison you." Cody snapped, fists clenching involuntarily. Obi-Wan eyed him oddly and Cody breathed as best he could, trying to centre himself and drag his shields back up. "Correction: they actually poisoned you. A thorough... _examination_ was necessary."

"So you, I quote, turned into the Exterminator?" The pop culture reference was not lost on Cody, although it seemed a little clunky coming from Obi-Wan. _Waxer and his holos_. 

"Waxer may have been exaggerating what happened, sir."

Obi-Wan cocked his head to the side a little, eyes sharp with amusement and something deeper. _He knows something_ , Cody thought, _but what?_

"You know, Cody," Obi-Wan looked at him oddly, gaze frighteningly intense, almost intimately honest, "I would do the same for you. Without question."

There was a beep from Cody's wrist before he could think about whatever Obi-Wan meant. He tapped his commlink impatiently, tearing his gaze away from his Jedi with some difficulty.

"Commander Cody here." He barked.

"The general's with you isn't he?" 

Obi-Wan looked sheepish, an embarrassed smile curling around his lips. It was all Cody could do to look away. He didn't have his bucket on, after all. He couldn't risk it.

"Whatever makes you say that, Painless?" 

Cody allowed himself a conspiratory grin with Obi-Wan, although he fully intended to shove the man into bed and tie him down if necessary. (A few minutes more, though, a few minutes of being alone together in the corridor outside the bridge). 

(Sometimes he forgot that they were good friends - sometimes he wanted the Jedi so badly that their banter was almost foreign to him).

"I'm right in front of you, that's kriffing why." Painless stomped into their line of view, a shiny junior medic tagging along behind him. "General Kenobi, I'm putting you on bed rest for the next _week_."

He stalked forward, the shiny bobbing nervously at the side.

"And Commander?" Painless was a little shorter than Cody, since he wasn't wearing armour, but he was no less terrifying for it. "That leg of yours. Medbay. Both of you. _Now_."

Obi-Wan sighed and looked at Cody witheringly, despite the smile in his eyes. Cody glared back.

“What happened to his leg?” Obi-Wan asked their Medic halfway through the walk of shame back to Medbay. 

“Just a scratch-” 

“With all due respect, Commander,” Cody never knew it was possible to intone _that_ much disrespect, “shut the kriff up.” Then, to Obi-Wan: "He got into a fight with the hired assassin who administered the poison, sir. Blaster bolt to the leg, tearing around the knee."

“As I said,” Cody cut in before Obi-Wan could, “just a scratch.”

“I kriffing bet.” Painless muttered darkly.

Obi-Wan’s chuckle, despite it all, made Cody’s insides warm.

_Kriff._

* * *

The Jedi were, in fact, allowed to love.

Cody knew this. He also knew that the Jedi couldn’t become attached. So, he knew that Obi-Wan wouldn’t be able to love him back the same way. 

He knew Obi-Wan loved him - as steadily and surely as he loved everyone. Cody knew and it hurt in a bittersweet way that made his teeth ache. He would be content to live the rest of his life with only Obi-Wan's quiet companionship and warm presence - he would die at least a little happy, maybe. 

Nonetheless, Cody allowed himself the quiet hope of Obi-Wan wanting him back. The hope was what kept him going, really, kept him alive and kicking so that he would make it to the end of the kriffing war. The dream of catching Obi-Wan's fingers in his, holding him - was his salvation, in a way.

But even the knowledge that Obi-Wan most likely would never feel the same way (a fact that Cody had reconciled himself with from the very beginning) - it still hurt to hear Obi-Wan say it out loud.

"After the war?" He squinted at the ground, not looking Cody in the eyes. The question was perhaps a little personal but he and Obi-Wan were friends, right? "I suppose...once the relief efforts and restoration are over, I'll leave the Order."

"Leave?" 

Cody couldn't contain his surprise. Obi-Wan leaving the Order seemed as impossible as seeing Rex with dark hair, or trying to separate the sky from the ground.

Obi-Wan smiled that sad smile of his and his gaze settled on Cody's again, squinting against the overhead lights. There was a slight, incongruous flush high on his cheeks. 

"I cannot be a Jedi and love someone as much as I do." Obi-Wan said softly. His eyes searched Cody's face almost imploringly and - gods, _he knew_. "I am afraid that I won't be able to let them go, if the time comes."

With that, he reached over to pat Cody's thigh and slid off his perch awkwardly, still flushed. 

"I'd best be off, then, Commander," the title held no teasing quality, nor was this a formal situation, and it _hurt_ , "paperwork to do."

"Good luck," Cody swallowed, oddly empty despite his utter lack of surprise, "sir."

This was a typical Obi-Wan fashioned putdown: gentle and indirect. After all, Obi-Wan and Duchess Kryze were an open secret. Obi-Wan knew Cody knew and how could he have not noticed just how _much_ Cody loved him? Obi-Wan could be pretty stupid for a Jedi but he was still just that - a Jedi.

_Not for Satine he wasn't_.

The irony, however, was that High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi would always be a Jedi to Cody. Cody's low-lying hopes for the contrary were, as he had long supposed, untrue. 

And yet: he knew Obi-Wan would come back, because he'd never left. He would always be Cody's friend as much as he was the Duchess's lover. 

And Cody - he wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. He'd be happy, yes. He'd be content, that was true. He had his siblings. He had Rex, he had Wolffe and Bly and Ponds and Fox, he had the 212th. In a way, he also had his general. But it was still hard to ignore the empty space in his heart, in the bones of his very soul, that he'd created, helplessly, almost inevitably, just for Obi-Wan.

So, it wasn’t that Cody couldn’t live without Obi-Wan - he could, certainly. It was more that he didn’t want to. 

He wanted Obi-Wan in his life, be it as a friend, or as his CO; hells, even as Cody's lover, in another life. He wanted Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

* * *

_When people asked about how Cody got his scar, the length and level of detail of his replies varied depending on his mood. Shinies might've gotten an embellished tale of him taking down_ x _droids in_ y _minutes before getting levelled by an unexpected droideka._

_About a quarter of the Ghosts knew the actual story. As a result, they liked to butt in with extremely inaccurate variations when he was trying to impress the shinies. A notable example was when Boil had gotten drunk and spun a wild tale of Cody ripping droids apart with his bare hands before getting knocked out and carried off the battlefield by their general. Half the 212’s shinies still thought that that was what had happened (Cody had mixed feelings about that). The Torrent, most likely courtesy of their captain, maintained that Cody slipped in the fresher at some point, despite Rex having received the more accurate "I was fresh out of ARC training and was distracted by General Kenobi" version._

_General Kenobi himself had actually been there for Cody almost getting himself blown up, so whenever the origin of the scar was mentioned he always went oddly pale and didn't say anything, just stared at Cody with something in his eyes that Cody could never decipher until much later, sitting beside Obi-Wan’s unconscious body in a ward and remembering all that had come before._

_Neither of them ever mentioned it to each other, not until much later, but they both knew that the other remembered._

This is how it ends _, Cody had thought, then, staring up at the unforgiving sky, the sun bright in the nitrogen blue. His skull had been on fire and it was all he could to to turn his head round to look at his general one last time, because something selfish inside him wanted to be held before he died, and his general had been the one most likely to do that. Rex, his closest brother, hadn't been there - instead he was off somewhere, parsecs away with his own troops. Wolffe was gone too, as were Bly and Fox and all the others. Boil and Waxer were a hundred metres and a life away, but the general..._

_Cody’s blood was mixing with the dirt that had then been his deathbed and there were tears spilling unbidden out of his eyes, running down his cheek and over the injury. It hurt._

_Later, they didn't mention Cody lying on the cold ground and watching his general fight his way over like a force of nature, his 'saber like a beam of light slicing through the thick water of Kamino's grey ocean. The sun had set his hair on fire and Cody had just looked at him, for a few moments. Cody had looked at him and tried to reach out because he knew that medevac wasn't going to arrive any time soon and all he'd wanted was for somebody to hold him before he died._

_Later, he wondered how many of his siblings had died wanting the same and not gotten it._

_But Cody was a Marshal Commander, so he was worth enough to be noticed. The general finally reached him and dropped down next to him, ever graceful. The Ghosts were about a hundred metres away so it was just them, Kenobi blocking the rest of the world out with his body as he dragged Cody to the relative safety of a rock covering. With the blasterfire gone, Cody felt safe. If his Jedi was there, he was safe._

_But Kenobi would leave. He had more important things than Cody. There was a war on, after all, and Cody was just a clone._

_Cody was feeling selfish, though. He was going to die, after all._

_"D'n't" Speaking was agony, pain slicing through his temples but he'd had to say it. "Don'... leave... please."_

_"Cody." General Kenobi had whispered and because he was a jetii - or maybe it was because he was Obi-Wan Kenobi - he hauled Cody half into his lap and gently took his bucket off, his gloves cold against Cody’s unharmed cheek. "Oh, Cody."_

_They hadn't been particularly close at the time. But the Jedi had just looked at him with all-encompassing love in his eyes - eyes that were the colour of Kamino's endlessly clear oceans when the weather was good, eyes that were the colour of the sky above their heads, eyes the colour of the lightsaber that he always dropped. Obi-Wan Kenobi had looked at Cody and taken his hand and it had_ hurt _._

_It had hurt_ so much _._

_"The men," Cody said, instead of screaming out the unknowns crowding in his chest, "keep...keep th’m safe. Keep...th’kids safe."_

_"I swear." Kenobi whispered, deafeningly loud-_

_And then he was gone. But Cody knew in his heart, somewhere deep in his fuzzy subconscious, that Obi-Wan Kenobi would always come back, no matter the cost._

* * *

They were back on Coruscant, except it was winter now, four months and a quietly cracked heart later. It felt like years since he'd looked at his Jedi's smiling face on a street corner and tumbled off the precipice he'd made for himself. 

So, Cody made his way to 79's: there wasn't not much else to see, nowhere to be, not without Obi-Wan. Cody didn’t know Coruscant, after all. His home was the Negotiator. Besides, he wasn't in the mood to be whispered at or _looked_ at in that strange way that someone might look at an unnatural insect. 

So a dim corner in 79’s it was. It was unlikely that he’d run into any of his closest brothers and beyond them, the 212th and some of the 501st, Cody tended to keep to himself.

However, as he weaved through a crowd of his siblings, he saw that his favourite corner was already taken by none other than Fox. Not surprisingly, his older brother was, by the looks of it, trying to drink himself under the table. 

Cody spotted Thorn and Thire, blond and bright red respectively, reeling on the dance floor. This meant that Fox didn’t have any intake control and was likely dangerously, bitterly drunk.

The GAR may have had it bad, but at least they always had their Jedi to take care of them. The Guard only had each other against the prejudice of Coruscant’s elite.

"Hey Fox."

He got a low grunt in response, but Fox did move to the side. His face remained buried in his mug.

Cody sat down. Fox looked up and-

"That's a nice shiner you've got." 

That was an understatement. Half of Fox's face was purple, and his right eye was swollen shut.

"We ran out of bacta," Fox rasped, "Thorn got pushed off a building, we used the last of it on him."

_Gods._ The Guard's situation got worse and worse.

"I'll get an order in-" 

"No need." Fox's gaze was agonised but hard. "The Temple restocked us."

"Why the black eye, then?"

"Maybe I'm trying to impress Wolffe." Fox said, ever sardonic despite the slight slur to his words, but it made Cody snort. "Senators Amidala and Organa are trying to sign a petition for clones' rights and some PR lackey is plastering my beautiful face all over it."

Cody hummed. It was certainly an idea but...he suspected there was something under all this.

"What happened?" 

Usually, he wouldn't have asked. But this was Fox.

Fox snorted and downed the rest of his drink, his good eye skittering around the room. He set it down with a decisive clink and turned back to Cody, jaw set. He looked almost _scared_ , and the implications of that made Cody's hair stand on end.

"Our esteemed Chancellor Palpatine," Fox started, and Cody, with a sinking feeling, already knew where this was going, "put a hit out on your general.”

For a moment, Cody saw red. 

“Who.” He gritted out eventually, then took a deep breath. Tried to school himself. “Who’s the bounty hunter.”

“No idea.” Fox took a swig from his fifth glass - Cody had counted - and put his head in his hands. “If I knew I’d have told you, vod.”

“So I just wait it out?”

“Yeah,” Fox looked at him, oddly penetrating despite the amount of drink in his guts - then again Fox always held his liquor well, “I did some digging though. I don’t trust the man. He appeared on Naboo but there's no record of him before that, anywhere, and when I searched his shrivelled face up in the darknet archives there was this dictator on some planet who looked exactly like him, and before that there were a string of shady characters who look _exactly like Palpatine._ ”

“So you’re saying he’s immortal?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“I,” Cody started, then remembered with a bitter pang just why he was in 79’s, alone, “if Obi-Wan isn’t busy, I need to comm him.”

“Secure line, little bro.” Fox smiled, a twisted little thing. “Where is he?”

“With Satine.” Cody didn’t want to begrudge Obi-Wan that happiness, but- “On Mandalore, I mean.”

“Ah.” Thankfully, Fox seemed to understand. “Okay, I’ll tell Vos and he should pass the memo on. And Cody? Don’t tell Skywalker. Don’t let this reach Skywalker, _please_.”

Cody snagged Fox’s fullest glass and downed it, wincing at the burn of alcohol.

“I won’t.” He promised. But he was here to forget for a night. “Tell me about Vos, then.”

“Buy me another drink and I just might.”

“Think I can pass the tab onto baby Thorn?”

“Your scar should be a karking _voucher -_ might get free drinks. Marshall Commander Cody, and all that. Especially since you’re kriffing Kenobi himself and everything.”

Cody grunted morosely, then double-taked. “Wait. Is that the rumour?”

“Yeah,” Fox eyed him, “stupid, I know. You’re pining so hard I can feel it from a kriffing parsec away.”

“I think Obi-Wan knows, too.” Cody tipped the glass back, waiting for the last drop of whiskey to drop into his mouth. “He put me down and everything. Said he was going to leave the Order for someone after the war and then went off to Mandalore.”

Fox hummed dubiously, eyes shrewd.

“I’m nowhere near drunk enough for this.” He declared. “Get me the most pretentious sounding thing on the menu please.”

* * *

Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore was dead.

Obi-Wan came back in an odd state, like he was grieving but unsure how to go about it. Cody almost knew the feeling - the confused emptiness in Obi-Wan’s eyes reminded him of how he felt when he heard about the death of a long unseen sibling. 

Cody decided, eventually, that he needed to get Obi-Wan to talk. Emotions were not a Jedi speciality, and neither were they Cody’s, but he knew when someone needed to talk but didn’t know who to turn to.

So Cody took the least awful looking bottle of Moonshine’s rotgut in the stash down in Engineering and went to find Obi-Wan.

He trailed through corridors, waving off concerned shinies and Longshot’s leer when he finally arrived at the door to Obi-Wan’s quarters. The doors opened as soon as he got close and he stepped inside, rolling his eyes.

“If you want it to seem natural, wait a few seconds.”

Obi-Wan made a half-amused face at him. He was sitting tightly on the lone chair in the room and, even by Cody’s standards, looked like banthashit. His hair was sticking up in tufts, eyes red-rimmed but not from crying, looking pale and jittery and nothing like the Jedi who could lift mountains and crush hundreds of droids. He looked younger, too, smaller, huddled in his too-big robes. 

Cody said as much.

"I must confess, Cody," Obi-Wan's voice was quiet and ragged around the edges, "that I don't think I'm doing quite so well as I thought."

Cody nodded and started taking his armour off, as he habitually did. Obi-Wan watched him tiredly, but with a sort of fondness that made Cody's chest feel warm. Once he had made a neat pile of his armour, he sat down on his usual seat at the foot of Obi-Wan's bed, tucking the messy covers back. 

Obi-Wan continued just... looking at him. From his gaze, he must have been somewhere else.

"You coming?" Cody picked the rotgut up off the floor and scooted backwards, so that his back was against the wall. "I brought some of Moonshine's strictly nonalcoholic and absolutely legal stuff."

Obi-Wan snorted, a little wetly, and got up off the chair, making his way slowly over to Cody. He dragged himself into a sitting position next to Cody, crossing his legs and wrapping his robe tightly around himself. Their elbows brushed.

Obi-Wan wordlessly took the bottle and uncorked it, taking a swig. He winced.

"Very legal, indeed." 

Cody took it off him and took a sip himself. It was disgusting but it did the job - Obi-Wan looked like he needed a drink.

Other than that, they sat in companionable silence for a while, passing the bottle between each other slowly.

When Obi-Wan did eventually speak, it was quiet, and just this side of slurred. More than half the bottle was gone but Cody had only had two sips.

“She was my friend,” Obi-Wan stared down through the neck of the bottle, sloshing the liquid inside from side to side pensively, "I loved her when we were young and even thought that I'd leave the Order for her. But then we became friends and we stayed that way for the better. I know she...that she still loved me in that way. She never mentioned it, though. Spared us that."

He took a shaky breath and Cody bumped their shoulders together. Obi-Wan looked up at him and smiled, a tiny, trembling thing.

"She was a good woman." He lifted the bottle up in a toast. "Did what she thought was right, would see it to the end. Now she's one with the Force and I hope finally at peace."

His smile turned bitter and he downed the last of the rotgut. 

"So that's that." Obi-Wan looked up at him and then promptly turned away to drop his face into his hand. "Force, I'm so karking _tired_ of this blasted war."

"Aren't we all," Cody said, plucking the empty bottle from Obi-Wan's hands and setting it down onto the floor, "aren't we all."

They sat quietly for a while longer.

"Out with it, Cody," Obi-Wan raised his head and smiled, bemused despite the pain still lingering in his eyes, "I can feel your curiosity."

Cody flushed and shrugged awkwardly, the drink making him loose around the edges. "You said you wanted to leave the Order after the war. Was that...was that for the Duchess?"

Obi-Wan blinked at him, surprise etched onto his face.

"Oh Force, no." He chuckled, expression almost hysterical. "No, it isn't - wasn't - Satine."

Cody considered this. The hope rearing its head in his chest was an ugly thing.

"Rex?" He tried.

Obi-Wan burst into surprised laughter. "Not Rex, either."

Cody didn't want to give into the tempting silver tongue of hope.

"Senator Organa?" 

Obi-Wan's expression was wistful and for a stomach-dropping second Cody thought he'd found it.

"Had you asked me a year earlier I confess my answer may have been yes," Obi-Wan tilted his head mischievously, eyes regaining some of their spark, "but even so I don't think I'd have left the Order for Bail. He wouldn't even have let me. Duty first. He knows it better than most."

Cody was running out of options fast. Obi-Wan was closer than he'd been five minutes ago. If the Jedi turned his head then-

Their noses brushed. It was probably the alcohol, but Obi-Wan's eyes seemed fantastically intricate in that moment.

"Alpha-17, then?" 

"One night stand." Obi-Wan said nonchalantly, eyes never leaving Cody's.

Cody choked. "Didn't need to know that."

Obi-Wan smiled lopsidedly. He was close enough that Cody could count his freckles. 

-they were both drunk. It didn't mean anything. Obi-Wan was getting more and more uncoordinated by the minute, the alcohol obviously beginning to affect him; Cody was feeling pleasantly buzzed, despite the awful taste of the stuff, but he'd had significantly less than Obi-Wan, so he wasn't thoroughly inebriated.

"Alright." Cody pushed gently at Obi-Wan's shoulder and got him on his back. "You need to sleep."

"I have paperwork-"

"Not drunk you don't." Cody swatted at Obi-Wan's leg and watched his general giggle at the ceiling. He couldn't help his smile. "Sleep."

Obi-Wan grinned dopily at him but dutifully closed his eyes. The Jedi was out like a light as soon as his head was on the pillow - he must've gone a day or so without sleep. 

Cody couldn't help it (he was, after all, also drunk. Gods, Moonshine’s stuff _worked_ ) - he reached out to tuck that lock of hair back off Obi-Wan's face. 

"Sleep well," Cody said into the quiet, watching Obi-Wan's chest rise and fall steadily before gathering up the courage to press his lips to Obi-Wan's cheek, "sleep well, _cyar'ika._ "

* * *

Cody could spot a sniper from a parsec away. He had a knack for it, apparently.

It was a sort of extra sense, being able to tell if someone was around, waiting for a kill. Cody was observant, even for an ARC Trooper, and Waxer liked to claim that he could actually smell threats.

The problem in big cities, though, was that although Cody knew there was a sniper around he could never actually tell where they were. Even in empty cities, that didn’t change: there were too many variables involved, too many hiding places, too much loose debris. So. A sniper was targeting Obi-Wan on Palpatine's order and it frustrated and scared Cody in equal measure that he couldn’t tell exactly where they were. 

Logically, he knew that Obi-Wan was a Jedi, he could take care of himself just fine, would probably deflect the bolt before it hit him. But on the other hand - Cody worried. Obi-Wan had almost died before, on numerous occasions. 

There was a hand on his shoulder.

“Commander,” _say my name_ , some part of Cody’s hindbrain screamed, _say my kriffing name_ , “relax. I will be perfectly alright, I assure you.”

“Yeah,” Cody allowed himself to slump fractionally under Obi-Wan’s hand, watching his general hide his smile behind his other hand, “I hope so, sir.”

There was a silence. Cody avoided looking at his general.

"Has the Order discovered anything on Palpatine, yet?" He said eventually, watching Obi-Wan wince out of the corner of his eye ( _Cody would never be able to look away from him, would he?)_ "Sir."

"Not yet," Obi-Wan tucked his arms into his sides, fiddling with his robes. Two years into the war and he had left only his vambraces out of his more or less full set of armour. Their plastoid was scratched and marred with burn marks; Cody wanted, suddenly, to get him new ones, maybe hand-paint them in 212 orange… "we're doing all we can, though. I think Vos is on Kamino - I heard something about clone production being investigated. Furthermore, the entire start of the war is being examined, especially Palpatine's rise to power. To think all this action simply because the Chancellor wants me dead."

That was certainly a lot to take in.

"You're quite important." Cody realised too late that Obi-Wan was looking at him with a slight flush on his cheeks. He hastily dropped his hand off the small of Obi-Wan's back and stepped away, folding his arms behind him. "Sir. I mean - you're quite important to us. The GAR. The Order."

"You sounded like Rex, there." Obi-Wan told him, bemused despite the blush still gracing his cheekbones. "Or maybe Rex sounds like you?"

"I'm older." Cody snapped reflexively, then smiled as Obi-Wan laughed. “He’s going to sound like me.”

There was a crunching sound and he looked up to see Boil and Waxer making their way towards them over the rubble with Crys tagging behind them.

“Nothing, sirs.” Boil kicked a metal rod out of the way and watched it roll, jangling as it went. “Nothing that we could see, anyway.”

And that was, of course, when Cody felt it. The universe had an annoying sense of irony.

_I’m probably Force-sensitive_ , he thought vaguely, just before he yelled for everyone to get down and Obi-Wan was wide-eyed under him.

“Cody?” His Jedi whispered.

_He said my name_ , Cody thought stupidly, breathless with agony, _take that_.

Then it was over and unconsciousness was the colour of Obi-Wan’s blurring blue eyes.

* * *

“That was stupid.”

Cody did not quite know what Obi-Wan was talking about, but there was hand petting his hair and it was... nice. 

"Jumping in front of the assassin, _really._ " That was Obi-Wan's fondly exasperated sigh, the one he used on Skywalker and Tano and sometimes Cody and it was just another little bit of Obi-Wan that he loved. "Punching droids is one thing, my dear, but a blaster to your chest without armour is a whole new level, Cody."

Obi-Wan always said his name so good. It sounded _right_.

"They really do have you on drugs, don't they." 

There was that sigh again. Oh, someone was holding his hand, someone with slender fingers and calluses and cool, dry skin. Obi-Wan was holding his hand. 

Little gods, he loved Obi-Wan _so much_.

"For what it's worth, Cody," came Obi-Wan's lovely, achingly sad voice, "I love you too."

The darkness was pleasantly warm, fuzzy with the thrill of Obi-Wan loving him back, Obi-Wan saying those words. Distantly, Cody knew that this was a dream.

But there was a hand stroking his hair and fingers squeezing his own, so he let himself drift. Complete darkness came surprisingly easily; then again, he was safe.

* * *

It turned out that there were chips. Chips in their heads, chips designed to make them into meat droids. Chips to make them into mindless killers. 

Fox’s accidental discovery of the sniper order in the waste paperwork had launched a full-blown investigation. Then, a clone, Tup, from the Torrent, went berserk and killed a Jedi, leading to Fives’ discovery of the damn chips. Once they’d taken the thing out of Tup’s head he'd apparently gone back to himself. 

He’d taken the matter to Obi-Wan rather than Skywalker, which was Rex's original plan - Fox's plea was too earnest to be ignored. It went from there, Obi-Wan liaising with the Order and trusted members of the Senate.

Cody had never hated anyone as much as he hated Palpatine. _Never_ . Because no-one, _no-one,_ dared to harm even a hair on his general's head. Not even a karking Sith lord. _Especially_ not a Sith lord.

But it also made him sick. Palpatine could've called at any time and made him turn on his own general, on his Jedi. A chip hardwired into his brain so much that it had taken the medics over an hour to make sure it was out safely. A chip that could've taken away all his love, all his emotion, could've-

At least the net was closing. Now that they knew who the Chancellor was, the Order and trusted clones had implemented a mass de-chipping of the GAR. As far as Cody was aware, the large majority of the Vode were safe. Jedi Healers were helping where they could, too, and the Kaminoans were discretely instructed to stop the implantation of chips.

On top of that, Dooku had been taken, oddly willingly, into custody. In fact, he'd even given his cooperation, filling out the bones of what they knew. He'd seemed oddly attached to Obi-Wan - Cody's general had later explained that Dooku was his grandmaster and had actually known him since he was a child, even been a caring figure before he'd turned to the Dark. 

With Dooku's help, they'd successfully tracked down Grievous. The 212th were now on their way to Utapau, where they were due to attack Grievous. Meanwhile, the 501st and the Guard, with the additional help of all the Jedi Council, were planning how to best take down Palpatine.

Obi-Wan had approached him before he’d left:

_“You are, I’m sure, aware that it is possible that we’ll never see each other again.” He tilted his head to the side, arms folded behind his back, and took a deep breath. “I wanted to say that it’s been an honour, my dear Commander.”_

_“The honour’s all mine, sir.” Cody let himself smile wryly. “You’re the best kriffing Jedi there is, Obi-Wan.”_

_Obi-Wan made a face at him, then paused, looking like he was going to say something else. His words from what could’ve been a drugged up hallucination, or maybe reality, echoed in Cody’s head -_ I love you too. _Instead of saying anything, though, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Cody._

_Cody rested his chin on Obi-Wan’s neck and held him close while he still could._

_“Good luck, Obi-Wan.” He said, and then, the words foreign on his tongue despite their familiarity. “May the Force be with you.”_

_“And with you, too, Cody.”_

And then he was gone in a flurry of too-big brown robes, with a small smile and a flash of his eyes.

As far as Cody was aware, the day the battle on Utapau took place and Grievous was dispatched would be the same day that the Jedi moved in to take down Palpatine. 

He didn't usually pray. He had no god to pray to and the Force was not his master. But standing on the bridge, an hour away from Utapau, having just received a comm from Obi-Wan saying that they were on their way to the Senate buildings with a recently informed Skywalker and the Order's best - Cody tapped his vambraces together and prayed. He prayed to whatever deity could listen for it all to turn out in their favour. Prayed, selfishly, for Obi-Wan specifically to be spared. 

When the ship dropped out of hyperspace, Cody stood steady and kept his head high. 

_They were going to make it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter up roughly next week - I have outlines for both the last two chapters. Stay tuned <3


	2. let's go home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got round to completing this! Needed the soft vibes.
> 
> Anyway enjoy fluff and soft gays <3 take care of yourselves guys!

It was over. The war was over.

They’d won.

They’d _made it._

The 212th cheered and hooted, their joy echoing through the sinkhole. Boil and Waxer swung each other around like cadets, laughing as they staggered to a halt and into each other’s arms. Many other vod’e, though, just stood there numbly. Painless had taken off his helmet and Cody could see the tears running down the medic’s face, could see the shivers running through his entire body. Crys, Wooley and Gearshift were bundled together in a hug and before long more and more of the 212th gravitated towards them to form a group hug consisting of all the troopers that could fit. 

Cody, though, looked at Grievous’ prone, smoking body, and waited. The call had come in from Mace Windu, who’d looked worse for wear, and was concise to say the least. No word about how many had lived or died, how many were dying or being healed. Specifically, no word about Obi-Wan.

If Obi-Wan was dead - would it have been worth it? Would all those hopes to survive, to know peace, still be as blissful as they seemed?

Sometimes, Cody’s answer would have been no. But now, looking over at his troopers, the ones he’d led to this moment, the ones he and Obi-Wan had led together - he knew that whatever the cost, it would be worth it. It would always be worth it. 

Besides, Obi-Wan would want it. Obi-Wan would want them to be happy. 

So Cody held his head up and waited. If he tilted it back enough he could see the sky - the colour of Obi-Wan’s eyes on that day so long ago, now. He felt himself smile.

There was a beep and Cody snapped into awareness, feeling the anxiety course through him again. 

“Commander Cody here.” He squinted at the hologram and saw that it was a Twi'lek Jedi - not Bly’s one, though.

“Healer Che here,” said the hologram and Cody’s blood ran cold, “your general is in the Temple’s Halls of Healing. He’ll survive, don’t worry - he’s had far worse.” Healer Che smiled and Cody felt himself go lax with relief. Obi-Wan was alive. Injured, but alive. Nothing unusual. “He’ll be in bacta for three days. According to Captain Rex you’re the only one capable of keeping him on bedrest, so you’ll be on babysitting duty when he wakes up.”

“Alright, sir.” When Cody remembered that there was nothing for him to do other than organise clean up efforts and help look after Obi-Wan, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

Healer Che nodded.

“See you then, Commander."

The hologram winked out.

"How's the general?" 

Boil and Waxer had materialised at his elbow and Cody couldn't be more glad that they were there. There were tears drying on their faces and they still had their arms around each other.

"Alive." Cody breathed out and let himself smile. "He's alive."

Waxer slammed into him in a crushing hug. Cody found himself laughing helplessly, adrenaline and joy and relief making a heady mix in his veins. Boil wrapped his arms around him from behind and Cody let himself go limp, suddenly exhausted. There was a whoop and he felt another body slam into their huddle, then another and another until they all unbalanced and toppled to the floor, laughing and overjoyed.

_They'd made it._

* * *

Cody had to admit it - falling asleep in a chair in a corridor while the love of his life was being taken out of bacta was a cliché move.

His neck ached and his eyes itched awfully, but he didn't have the energy to rub at them. Retrospectively, he should have gone to the barracks or stayed on the Negotiator and gotten some sleep, but he had wanted to be there when Obi-Wan woke up - which, obviously, hadn't happened yet. Master Che had promised to get him when Obi-Wan started coming out of stasis.

The account of the fight varied from person to person. The main agreement was that Obi-Wan had been speared through the stomach near the end, and Skywalker had promptly decapitated Palpatine in a fit of pure rage. Cody had been too tired to understand the rest.

He groaned and sat up, his back cracking ominously - his armour wasn’t exactly comfortable to sleep in and the chair he’d been sitting looked a little dented. The Jedi needed stronger chairs, he thought absently.

“Commander,” Vokara Che’s voice was sharp but when Cody looked up at her, she was smiling, “he’s sleeping off the last of the sedatives. You can come in now.”

Cody got to his feet faster than he probably should have. The corridor swam but after nearly three years of fighting a war, he was used to it and carried on walking.

“No talking inside.” Master Che hissed quietly before they came through, putting a hand on his shoulder. “He should be awake in around fifteen to twenty minutes - but knowing Obi-Wan, it could be less.”

At his nod of understanding, she ushered him into the ward. There was a surprising lack of machinery and the room was lit in a gentle glow that was quite unlike the harsh fluorescent lights of the Medbays he was used to.

There were two beds in the room on each side of the room. In one, General Skywalker was sitting up and fiddling with a piece of machinery. Beside him were Commander Tano, Senator Amidala and Rex - they must have arrived while Cody was asleep. Amidala had an arm around Tano, who was bundled into what looked like her Master’s oversized old robe and was sleeping soundly. Rex was sitting across from them and waved as Cody came in. Amidala and Skywalker turned round: Skywalker leered at him knowingly while his wife just smiled.

Cody raised a tired hand at them all before sitting down beside Obi-Wan. The Jedi looked pale against the white sheets, his hair lank and dark from the water used when the bacta was being washed off him. His freckles were almost all gone and there was a pink weal down the side of his face, as well a raised welt that ended halfway up his neck.

His hands were twitching on the covers. Cody stripped his gloves off and covered one with his own - it was freezing, so he brought his other one up and held Obi-Wan’s between them.

Cody was used to waiting by then but the ensuing fifteen minutes were endless.

Their last conversation on the Negotiator’s loading bay flashed in his mind - he remembered the look in Obi-Wan’s eyes, the tightness of his embrace. He remembered a thousand other things: how their noses had brushed; Obi-Wan holding his hand, smoothing his hair back, saying _I love you too_ ; the agony in his Jedi’s gaze, the pleading note of _please see it, please understand_ when they had talked about what they would do after the war, so long ago now. 

The heart-stopping, inescapable, giddy realisation that Obi-Wan loved him back, loved him _like that_ \- 

As if on cue, Obi-Wan’s quiet intake of breath made his heart clench in trepidation. Blue eyes snapped open, fingers clenched around his own. Obi-Wan’s gaze found Cody quickly, and he smiled.

“Cody.” He breathed. _Little gods_ Cody couldn’t get enough oxygen in his lungs. “Hello.”

“Hello there.” Cody whispered and Obi-Wan laughed, scratchy. 

“My line.” He was grinning, bright and true, with the force of a thousand suns.

“Hello to you too, Obi-Wan.” Skywalker said drolly from the other side of the room.

Obi-Wan turned his head and his smile only widened. Cody could practically feel the joy radiating off him - it was probably mostly the drugs but it made Cody warm from the inside out.

Even while he talked to Anakin, Obi-Wan didn’t pull his hand away. Cody squeezed it between his own and Obi-Wan just tangled their fingers together.

_They'd made it._

* * *

They made (former) Senator Organa the first Chancellor of the Republic after the end of the Clone War, as it had been dubbed by the holonet. Obi-Wan, Skywalker and Master Windu, followed by Masters Ti and Unduli, gave public accounts on matters such as the defeat of Palpatine and the bill to make the surviving clones full civil rights. Under the combined force of Organa, Amidala and the Order it was passed quickly. 

It would be a long road to becoming fully accepted. Prejudice made it hard for them to find work in the Core worlds, but the Order had fingers in quite a lot of pies so a good portion of the GAR were employed. Those who wanted it could stay on and train to help Jedi on missions. The Order had turned its sights on Wild Space, some of which had been seen by Obi-Wan and Chancellor Organa; this new interest was only a loose plan for now but a good deal of clones had signed up for the future missions. 

Despite the uncovering of Palpatine's lies and misinformation, Skywalker still left the Order to babysit his two newborn kids while his wife helped run the Republic. Cody hadn't seen Luke and Leia yet, but Rex and Obi-Wan assured him that they were very cute and Leia was going to be a miniature version of Skywalker - Cody refused to find the idea terrifying.

Cody himself didn’t quite know what to do with himself. Boil and Waxer had set off to look for Numa and regular comms that told him of their own happy ending, settling down on a planet with her. Crys, Gearshift and Longshot found jobs as mechanics somewhere in the Midrim. Fives and Echo made headlines every now and again as they had, after all, been two of the most famous clones in the GAR; with the introduction of the Cloned Sentients Rights Bill they'd made quite a large sum of money off the holonet. Others had also found their own paths to go down.

Meanwhile, Cody and Obi-Wan hadn't talked about the fragile bond they had yet, mostly because Obi-Wan still had duties as a Jedi to fulfill. Besides, Rex had roped Wolffe, Fox (and with him Thorn) and Ponds into a trip around the galaxy - how could Cody say no to his baby brother?

They were due to leave in two day’s time. Cody spent most of the first packing and the morning of the second found Obi-Wan standing dripping wet outside Cody’s Order-provided apartment. 

“May I come in?” Obi-Wan said with a grin. Cody would never have been able to say no.

Since Obi-Wan was so wet - it was raining unusually hard for the time of year - Cody had to pack him off to the fresher with a set of spare clothes and a towel and went to make tea.

“Thank you, Cody.” Obi-Wan wandered into the kitchen after about twenty minutes, wearing Cody’s clothes (a little too large on him) and with his hair, still growing out from the aftermath of his stay in Medical, sticking out in fluffy tufts. It was all awfully _domestic_ and made Cody’s chest ache.

They sat down at the table, nursing mugs of tea, and talked aimlessly about everything and anything that came to mind for a few hours before either of them thought to move to the other room or get fresh mugs of tea.

After moving to the only other room besides the bathroom and bedroom, they sat down together on the small couch, thighs touching. The silence was comfortable, yet oddly expectant, and Obi-Wan had a _look_ in his eyes. His mouth was turned up gently and his shoulders, usually so tense, were relaxed. 

Cody nudged him gently with his own shoulder with a small smirk. Obi-Wan smiled in the way that made his eyes crinkle, so Cody tentatively wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders.

The Jedi leaned into him immediately and with a heart-warming ease, resting his head on Cody’s shoulder. His hair brushed against Cody’s neck and smelled vaguely of the rain and that tang of hot air that seemed to cling to him.

“Two months is a surprisingly long time.” He murmured eventually, voice soft. “I must confess, Cody, that I’ll miss you.”

“I know.” Cody said. Obi-Wan wormed a little closer into his side. “I’ll miss you too. Want postcards?”

Obi-Wan snorted, ducking his head lower and so that he ended up resting it against Cody’s chest. Cody tightened his grip around the Jedi’s shoulders.

“That's rather Old World of you, my dear.” 

“I’ll send holos.” Cody promised with a grin. “And call.”

Nodding, Obi-Wan blew out a breath and slumped against Cody’s chest, boneless and radiating a sort of contentedness, almost like a tooka. It was warm and Cody, too, felt more content than he ever had in his life.

* * *

During his two months spent trekking around the galaxy, Cody found that he’d been measuring time in “with Obi-Wan” and “without Obi-Wan” for a long time.

Despite that, he managed to forget about his Jedi sometimes. Being with his closest brothers in a non-combat situation was nothing short of amazing, after all.

Ponds chattered about Master Windu and was generally as chaotic as he’d always been; Thorn and Fox bickered almost all the time; Fox and Wolffe got into numerous fights, one of which resulted in Fox getting thrown, screaming, off a bridge (that one went viral on the holonet because of _course_ Thorn and Rex were filming both the fight and Cody scraping a fuming Fox off the embankment); Rex charmed everyone and got bullied for being a baby; Wolffe drank a Mandalorian under the table and got three hundred credits off them for that; Rex had too many holos of the Skywalker twins and they all heard Skywalker’s flapping over the comm at least twice a day when he called Rex with pleas of _Padmé’s at a meeting Rex help me_. 

Meanwhile, unlike Rex’s weary explanations of _no, Anakin, that’s not how you cook baby food_ , Cody got teased relentlessly for his almost daily calls to Obi-Wan and although they all bought far too many trinkets and souvenirs, both for themselves and for the beings they cared about, Cody bought more of them than strictly necessary and received an uncalled for amount of “just buy a ring already” comments. But he knew Obi-Wan liked little things, kept them around him, so it was worth it.

 _I’m now a gardener at the Temple now_ , Obi-Wan had told him, a month into the trip. His voice was grainy and his image was flickering, since they were in hyperspace, but the news still made Cody smile dopily, _I’m still going to be around in case of anything but I am, so to speak, no longer in active service._

(They had, of course, discussed Obi-Wan's departure before. 

_I'm tired_ , Obi-Wan had confessed, rubbing at his face, _once the clean-up and restoration is more or less over, I'm retiring. A gardener can never go amiss._ )

There was something else in there. They both knew what it was, what they wanted to say - but there was still a month left until they saw each other again. So they left it hanging, soft words unspoken at the ends of calls.

Then they returned back to Coruscant. After their goodbyes and promises to see each other again soon, Cody decided to go straight to Obi-Wan’s apartment, which was just outside CoCo Town. 

He didn’t have much in terms of baggage, only his travelling bag, which was mostly filled with various trinkets that he intended to give to people, and the two blasters that he kept on him at all times. A good portion of the day he spent swapping trams and making his way across the planet, swaying among the crowd, anonymous among the mass of beings despite his distinctive face. It was winter, so although they’d landed in the morning, by the time he’d reached the area, the sun was low in the sky and made him squint as he stood in the corridor outside Obi-Wan’s apartment, the light shining through a window slit in the wall.

Cody knocked habitually, before noticing the buzzer, but by the time he thought to press it he already heard muffled clattering and swearing through the wall; he felt himself smile. And then, the door opened.

“Come in, Cody,” Obi-Wan said, beaming his even shorter hair and trimmed beard making him seem far younger than his thirty-five years, “I was hoping you’d stop by.”

Cody rolled his eyes, remembering the message he had sent earlier that day, and stepped inside.

The first thing he noticed was the distinctive smell of dirt and fertiliser, overlaid with something else. The corridor was narrow and not very long with two doors to the left and one opening to the right. There was a wider space just where the door was, which in turn had one small window just across from where Obi-Wan's robes were hung up and a random collection of boots were.

Cody swung his bag over his shoulder and set it down carefully on the floor just under the robes. When he straightened up, unsure of what to do with his boots, he saw Obi-Wan standing there, so close, right in the sunlight where it set him on fire.

He stepped forward, Obi-Wan’s sheer presence making his entire soul light up. Another step forward and Obi-Wan tilted his head back a bit to continue squinting up into Cody’s eyes. Cody was already taller than Obi-Wan, but his boots compared to the man's socked feet gave him another centimetre or so, so he had to look down a little. 

The sun fell right across them and made Obi-Wan's eyes glow and the wisps of hair around his face burned like lamp filaments, making a sort of halo around him. There was a streak of dirt on his cheekbone, barely there.

"You have," Cody smiled helplessly and Obi-Wan grinned back, still squinting with one eye blinking shut against the golden light, but he was nonetheless beaming like the sun, "a little bit of dirt here."

He reached up and wiped it away with his thumb, but just as he was going to pull his hand away, Obi-Wan's own darted up and kept Cody's hand there, so that his palm was on the other man's cheek, fingers pushed into Obi-Wan’s hair. 

It was warm. Obi-Wan's eyes were the colour of Nabooian lakes in the stream of late afternoon sunlight coming through the apartment’s window. He had more freckles now, too, hair burned gold by the sun. 

Cody wanted to kiss him so bad his fingers twitched. He loved Obi-Wan Kenobi so _much_ that he ached with it.

"Can I?" He whispered eventually, breathlessly, the look in Obi-Wan’s eyes forever burned into him. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes." Obi-Wan whispered, and Cody leaned in.

It was only a short peck but it was _everything_ , left him breathless. He wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan’s waist and Obi-Wan’s fingers settled, gentle as Alderaanian butterflies, hovered on Cody’s hips before sliding up in a sort of hug and settling against his spine. They shared air, staring into each other’s eyes, before Cody-

“I love you.” He breathed. “Gods, Obi-Wan, _I love you_.”

“I love you too.” Obi-Wan had barely said those words before Cody was kissing him again because suddenly that was all he could think of. It was all he wanted.

They clung onto each other even after, noses brushing, Obi-Wan’s eyes still closed. They stood there in the sunlight and didn’t let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is more or less a domestic epilogue; it'll be up when it's up, I've mostly lost track of time other than the endless sense of "oh fuck what the hell has this month?? week???? been" 
> 
> stay safe all of you <3


	3. warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, four months (I'm pretty sure it's four. time is fake anyway) later, I finally pulled this out and brushed it off. The main chunk of it was actually written nearly a year ago and then left lying in a doc, but I decided to actually use it. it was quite the experience to go through and edit out my old style. 
> 
> I'm sorry if it seems a little rushed, but I like the ending as it is. this chapter is months overdue in any case, so I decided to upload it before I forgot about it again. I hope you enjoy!

"Obi-Wan." Cody sighed, staring at the bathtub. The apartment was filled with a guilty silence. "Obi-Wan!"

"Yes, dear?" Obi-Wan called from the next room. There was a light, anxious pressure in the back of Cody's mind, like a brief press of shaking fingertips, rather than the _brushing-hands_ feeling of their Force bond that Cody was used to.

He sighed again.

"The bathtub, don't play innocent."

There was a clatter and a brief curse before Cody felt the soft, luminous presence that he was now almost always aware of moving closer. Obi-Wan poked his head into the bathroom, looking sheepish, then outright blushed as he noticed Cody's state.

"They're aquatic?" He tried, looking for all the world like a shiny caught doing something they shouldn't be. Cody made a mental note to visit Ponds soon, who had set up shop somewhere near them (near Mace Windu, to be specific), also on Coruscant. "The sink wasn't big enough, _cyare_ , I'm sorry."

Cody rolled his eyes and straightened the towel around his hips as he sat down on the edge of the toilet lid.

"I told you to comm me when anything like this happens. I could've stopped by and gotten a tub from somewhere."

Obi-Wan rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You're not angry?" He asked, a little hesitant. 

Cody sometimes wondered why Obi-Wan was sometimes still worried about that. There were times when Cody was a little annoyed, of course, but it was something he had been used to ever since the start of him knowing Obi-Wan. The only thing they had ever had serious arguments about was when either of them decided to do something sufficiently self-sacrificial or stupid in order to save someone else. And over what sauce was supposed to go with noodles.

"Of course not." Cody snorted, fiddling with the knot on his towel again. _Wouldn't want it coming loose, oh no_. "But then again, I can't take a bath because there's a kriffing plant in the tub.”

"I haven't had a _Keplari_ plant before!" Obi-Wan spread his hands. “Kit gave it to me earlier today, I haven’t managed to find a place for it yet."

Cody stared at him, then sighed. "I said that you should _comm me_ the next time this happened, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan crossed his arms defensively.

"Alright," he huffed, "I got a bit carried away. Cody, it glows in the dark, so I suppose I spent a little too long staring at it. Keplari are originally from Kamino, but they got taken to other worlds."

"That's very interesting and I’d like to hear about it later,” Cody meant every word, but he also really wanted to clean up, “but the Underworld is unhygienic and the freshers at the base don’t actually work very well.”

Obi-Wan made an apologetic face at him and opened his mouth.

“If you say sorry one more time I’m going to pull the plug on that plant.”

His husband glared at him. “I was actually going to suggest that I put it in a watertight bag for the time being, so you can have a shower at least.”

Ten minutes and one bagged, disgusting plant later, Cody finally got his shower. He came out furiously towelling his hair to find Obi-Wan sitting cross-legged on the sofa next to the snapping-root, which had taken up residence in the sunniest area of the room. According to Obi-Wan, increased levels of sunlight made it ‘happy’ and ‘lethargic’, a concept which Cody, a Clone War veteran, shouldn’t have found terrifying. 

“I commed Ponds.” He waved his pad at him. “They said that they’ve got a few tanks spare and that ‘in the name of the purple frog plant’ they’ll bring their ‘best one’ over in about an hour. ‘Special delivery’.”

Cody stared at him and sat down on the arm of the armchair.

“I shouldn’t be worried.” He said and flinched as the snapping-root uncurls rapidly, going bright red. That thing wasn’t a plant, he was pretty sure, or at least it was definitely sentient. “But I am.”

“Their pet store is called _The Bog_ , Cody, and I can’t look at them without getting an eyeful of their, ah, _lovely_ fashion choices. I’d be worried about _you_ if you weren’t concerned about them.”

“I still don’t understand how they managed to get a transparisteel tank with _inlaid patterns,_ Obi-Wan. Of _frogs_.”

“Ponds is a rather charming being, you know. And they told me that ‘the kids loved it’. Quite the ‘smash hit’, you see.”

“Well, Fox has one.”

Obi-Wan choked. “ _Fox?_ ”

“Vos bought him one on their fifth date - Ponds put him up to it. Fox was swooning all over the place, out of spite mostly. He has it in his office, I think. Keeps his collection of war-time wine bottles in there.”

That got him a smile.

"How is Fox, by the way?"

"He's doing fine. Says he might ask _the question_ soon."

Obi-Wan's smile grew mischievous and Cody couldn’t help his chuckle.

"Don't tell me-"

"Quinlan was saying something rather similar the other day."

They smirked at each other for a few seconds. The snapping-root wagged a crimson tendril in Cody's general direction. When it first started doing that, he thought he was just being paranoid. Obi-Wan had laughed at him but Cody _knew_ that that plant - if it could even be called that - was out to get him.

He glared at it.

Obi-Wan followed his gaze and laughed brightly. The sound still made Cody’s entire being warm, deliriously warm like he was when he first fell for this man, this wonderful man who is now his husband.

"It won't hurt you, Cody." Cody grunted distrustfully. "Gilbert wouldn't do that."

"You _named_ it?"

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"At least pick a better name, Obi-Wan. Palpatine would do nicely. Sheev. Brian. Dooku. General Grievous. Anything in that sort of area."

Obi-Wan made a face at him. The _I'm-so-disappointed-in-you(-Anakin)_ face. Cody continued to stare back, patiently - he'd learned that skill from Alpha-17.

Obi-Wan's expression cycled through amusement, something akin to horror, then awe, then resignation, then back to amusement, eyes sparkling with it. Cody managed not to grin back but continued to look relentlessly into Obi-Wan’s eyes. For a few seconds, he thought the staring contest was on, but Obi-Wan’s ears went red, for some reason, and he started squirming uncomfortably, obviously trying not to blink. Cody narrowed his eyes but didn't quite close them. 

Obi-Wan blinked, then squeezed his eyes shut. His entire face was flushed.

“I won.” Cody leaned back into the edge of the armchair, perplexed at Obi-Wan’s complexion and a little smug. Maybe a lot smug, if he was honest with himself. “I thought you Jedi were supposed to be good at this sort of stuff.”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose defiantly, then opened his eyes. His face was suddenly very, very earnest and his eyes very, very blue. It felt a little like a moment from a stupid holo, because the sunbeam that had been inching away from the snapping-root had finally fallen on Obi-Wan, setting his hair aglow. 

“Your eyes,” Obi-Wan smiled, one of his purest, most _loving_ ones, “Are rather keen, dear.”

Cody blinked, a little taken aback.

“They’re exactly the same as about a million other people’s?” It was an old conversation, one Cody brought up to try and not show how flustered he was - Obi-Wan wasn’t the type to give out compliments freely, which made the ones he did say all the more precious. 

Obi-Wan huffed.

“No, Cody. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again as many times as it takes you to understand. You are all unique, and so are your eyes. Your experiences change them, and the emotions that shine through them…”

He trailed off, blushing, and Cody got a vague sense of _embarrassment_ and all-encompassing _love._

_Sap._

“You’re a sap.” He teased fondly. “A _sap_.”

“We have had this conversation many times before, Cody. You are just as bad as I am.”

“You’re definitely worse.”

Obi-Wan grumbled something under his breath and pushed him off his perch with a flick of his fingers. Cody contained his squawk as he fell into the actual armchair, legs slung over where he was just sitting.

“That was _inappropriate use of the Force_.”

He swung his legs over so that he was sitting properly, making him sink down a few centimetres into the soft plush. 

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at him, challenging.

"Oh?" He smirked, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Really?"

Cody rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, really." He pushed himself up, off the chair, and stretched as he walked in the direction of the kitchen, weaving his way through the numerous pots that litter the floor. "I'm going to get food. Want anything?"

"Tea, please!" Obi-Wan called after him. "The Nabooian one!"

“Sir yes sir.” Cody stepped over the threshold into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the massive palm that had taken up residence near the door. From there, he made his way over to the fridge and opened it, staring at the various labeled containers. He eventually settled on last night’s leftover take-out from Dex’s place and stuck it in the heater. While it warmed up, he pottered around and found Obi-Wan’s mug - the over-sized monstrosity with a lightsaber printed on it - before pouring out what was left of the brew in the teapot. He switched on the kettle and set his food down on the table while he waited for it to boil.

As expected, Obi-Wan came in after him and looped his arms around Cody's chest, resting his cheek on Cody's head.

"Hey," Cody murmured, tilting his head so that he could brush his nose affectionately over his husband's shoulder, "how's the leg today?"

"Nothing to write home about,” Obi-Wan loosened his grip, letting Cody turn around to assess his face to make sure he wasn’t lying about it, “the sun does wonders, you know.”

“What happened to the Force?”

“Don’t talk to me about the Force, Cody, I’m retired.”

“A Jedi will always be a Jedi.” Cody reminded him, reaching up to gently tuck a lock of Obi-Wan’s hair behind his ear. The air around them seemed to hum. “And you’re not all that retired, sweetheart.”

“No,” Obi-Wan smirked slowly and Cody huffed, “I’m not, am I?”

He leaned forward and Cody met him halfway, kissing him dirty in the middle of their kitchen, after the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end of the line! I hope you liked it well enough. kudos and comments are love, leave some please <3

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat, ask me stuff, vibe and/or yell at or with me [here!](https://thedisasternerd.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading :)


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